Need a ‘porn star escort’? Head to the Russian iTunes store

Apple announced the launch of its new iTunes store in Russia Tuesday. Little did they know the “In Soviet Russia…” joke would live up to its name. How about a side of sex with your new app?

Company executives promised the store would feature local singers like Ёлка and other world-renowned musicians, describing the venture as “revolutionary.”

That’s one way of putting it.

Another way of putting it, in the words of a full-page advertisement spanning the across the entire store: “Date a pornstar escort tonight!”

9to5Mac

A programmer working on the website’s infrastructure used a few temporary placeholders but forgot to change them before the store’s launch. For instance, instead of writing “http://www[dot]itunes[dot]rus,” he may have used “http://www[dot]xxx[dot]xxx” with plans to alter the text after an official domain was settled upon.

As far as the computer is concerned, though, the latter is a legitimate domain — and it links to a pornography website.

So, pornographic material began popping up on the Russian iTunes wherever the placeholder was found, specifically in a section titled “More Films in Different Languages.”

The website servers are currently down. Let’s not be too quick to blame it on increased traffic.